Rough terrain is a fact of life for planetary rovers. Hakuto designs rover systems as small as possible and to utilize commercial of the shelf components. But will these choices conspire against the rover's survival?

Hakuto is the only Japanese team participating in the $30 million Google Lunar XPRIZE competition to land a robot on the moon, drive that robot 500 meters and send back high-definition imagery and video.

Russia's recent maiden launch of its new Angara rocket is a harbinger of bigger boosters to come. The successful test flight also marked the country's first new launch vehicle to be built from scratch since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Super massive black holes can spiral around and even out of their host galaxies after gobbling stars or smaller black holes. This surprising finding spun out of Astrophysicist Gaurav Khanna’s supercomputer, built from hundreds of Sony PlayStation 3s.

The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory is studying hypersonic vehicles that would use the Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE), which is intended to power the Skylon space plane, AFRL officials said.

Test-driving a new rover is a routine procedure for space scientists, but last week's trial in Germany was different: While the rover was here on Earth, its operator was floating 250 miles (400 kilometers) above on the International Space Station.

ESA's Eurobot was taken for a spin in Germany by astronaut Alexander Gerst, who was aboard the International Space Station. The test drive was part of a trial of new communications and operations technology.

A special U.N. action team has recommended the creation of an international warning network, which would gather and analyze asteroid data and provide timely warnings to national authorities if a potentially hazardous space rock were to threaten Earth.

NASA has selected its latest batch of high-tech ideas for the future of space exploration, with the agency funding five bold concepts that range from an innovative asteroid-mapper to a colossal "orbiting rainbow" that could see objects in ultradeep space.

NASA is already working on 3D printing rocket parts, a pizza maker and Hubble Space Telescope photos, but by the end of next month, a NASA engineer is expected to finish building the first space cameras made almost entirely out of 3D printed parts.

Like a large jet airplane, Reaction Engines’ SKYLON will place a Personnel and Logistics Module in its payload bay, capable of carrying 8 astronauts and their gear to Low Earth Orbiting stations, factories, hotels or other facilities.

The airframe of Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser space plane, which is designed to carry astronauts into space, was revealed on Aug. 1. The structure will be used in Dream Chaser's first orbital test launch, which is scheduled for November 2016.

“We’re there!” Excerpted from ESA’s live broadcast, this was the moment on 6 August 2014 when the Rosetta Mission team learned their spacecraft had successfully achieved a meet-up with comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Researchers have found that a "quantum vacuum plasma thruster" system, which requires no propellant, does indeed generate a small amount of thrust. If the technology pans out, it could greatly reduce the cost of spaceflight.

NASA's next big Mars rover launching in 2020 will be packed to the brim with high-tech instruments, including twin lasers, a water-hunting radar and a new drill to collect samples of Mars. See the seven science instruments on NASA's Mars rover 2020.